In this episode, we reconnect with Salim Edward and Viola Wallenius, two founding members of Home Street Home, to discuss community-led development, healthcare, education and climate action in Makongeni, Kwale County, Kenya.

Home Street Home is a non-profit organisation registered in Kenya, Finland and Switzerland. Working alongside the local community, it supports children’s and young people’s education, health and wellbeing.

Salim Edward is a Kenyan community leader and entrepreneur whose work focuses on financial management, organisational sustainability and community-led development. Viola Wallenius is a Finnish educator, author and director of Home Street Home. Her work focuses on programme development, global education and international partnerships. Both live and work in Makongeni, bringing perspectives grounded in everyday life within the community.

Salim and Viola discuss Home Street Home’s recent achievements, including expanded maternal healthcare, free ultrasound examinations and workshops for expectant mothers. They also describe inclusive early-childhood education, support for children with disabilities, vocational training and social enterprises that strengthen local livelihoods and the organisation’s long-term sustainability.

We also explore an EU-funded global education project connecting students in Kenya and Finland. Through school visits, workshops and the Together–Yhdessä event in Pori, young people exchange perspectives on sustainable development, global responsibility and locally relevant solutions to shared challenges.

The conversation examines how rising living costs, changes in international development funding and pressure on healthcare services are affecting food security, education and access to essential services in rural Kenya—particularly for women, children and economically vulnerable families.

Salim and Viola also discuss how drought, unpredictable rainfall, warming coastal waters and declining fish stocks affect farming, fishing and household incomes. Community-led responses include mangrove restoration, solar energy, recycling, waste management and sustainable sources of income.

Finally, we hear about Home Street Home’s new solar-powered clean-water system. Designed to treat saline and contaminated groundwater, it aims to provide safe drinking water for the organisation’s healthcare centre and the wider Makongeni community.

This episode shows how local leadership, international partnerships and community knowledge can build resilience and hope amid global change.

Learn more and support Home Street Home:

Website: https://www.homestreethome.fi Instagram: @homestreethomry

Hosts:

Astrid Aminoff and Max Tallberg

About Global Visions:

Global Visions is a Helsinki-based non-profit association bringing people and organisations together to develop ideas for a more just, equal and sustainable world.

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What if trade wars, sanctions, debt crises, and geopolitical rivalry are not merely political failures, but symptoms of deeper flaws in the architecture of the global economy? In this two-part episode of the Visions of a Better World Podcast, Max Tallberg and Astrid Aminoff are joined by Professor Heikki Patomäki and Dr. Konsta Kotilainen both contributors to Deweaponizing Interdependence: Bringing the Idea of International Clearing Union into the Twenty-First Century (available open access), to discuss the book’s central arguments and their relevance in today’s increasingly fragmented world economy.

The conversation explores how the current international monetary system contributes to global instability, geopolitical tensions, and economic inequalities. In the first episode, the guests discuss the weaponization of economic interdependence, the limits of monetary hegemony, and why the absence of adequate global monetary institutions may itself be generating conflict. In the second episode, the focus shifts to solutions and the idea of a Global Clearing Union: an international institution that would facilitate trade and financial exchanges through a shared accounting system, helping to reduce global imbalances while encouraging cooperation between both debtor and surplus countries. Inspired by John Maynard Keynes’s original proposal, the discussion considers whether such reforms could contribute to a more stable, democratic, and equitable global order, and what they could mean for the future of humanity and global cooperation.

Heikki Patomäki is Professor of World Politics and Global Political Economy at the University of Helsinki and one of Finland’s leading scholars of global political economy, democracy, and global governance. His work explores international relations, economics, philosophy, peace studies, and futures thinking, with a particular focus on democratic transformation at the global level. He has held professorships and visiting positions at institutions including Nottingham Trent University, RMIT University in Melbourne, and the University of Cambridge.

Konsta Kotilainen is a postdoctoral researcher in world politics and global political economy at the University of Helsinki whose work explores global governance, monetary theory, economics, and philosophy. His doctoral dissertation on monetary sovereignty and macroeconomic policy autonomy received an international PhD Thesis Prize from the University of Pavia. He is currently writing a book on supranational currency arrangements funded by the Kone Foundation and is also a researcher in the University of Helsinki’s Fragile Frontier (SPACE) project on space governance, resilience, and geopolitical change..

Suggested Resources

Global Justice Report 2026

Critical Realism & Peace Studies - Keynote Prof. Heikki Patomäki

Our Common Future: World System Scenarios for the 21st Century

Follow:

@globalvisionsry (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok)

GlobalVisionsry (YouTube & Linkedin)

More information: www.globalvisions.fi/en

Our music is licensed from premium beat.

What if trade wars, sanctions, debt crises, and geopolitical rivalry are not merely political failures, but symptoms of deeper flaws in the architecture of the global economy? In this two-part episode of Visions of a Better World Podcast, Max Tallberg and Astrid Aminoff are joined by Professor Heikki Patomäki and Dr. Konsta Kotilainen both contributors to Deweaponizing Interdependence: Bringing the Idea of International Clearing Union into the Twenty-First Century (available open access), to discuss the book’s central arguments and their relevance in today’s increasingly fragmented world economy.

The conversation explores how the current international monetary system contributes to global instability, geopolitical tensions, and economic inequalities. In the first episode, the guests discuss the weaponization of economic interdependence, the limits of monetary hegemony, and why the absence of adequate global monetary institutions may itself be generating conflict. In the second episode, the focus shifts to solutions and the idea of a Global Clearing Union: an international institution that would facilitate trade and financial exchanges through a shared accounting system, helping to reduce global imbalances while encouraging cooperation between both debtor and surplus countries. Inspired by John Maynard Keynes’s original proposal, the discussion considers whether such reforms could contribute to a more stable, democratic, and equitable global order, and what they could mean for the future of humanity and global cooperation.

Heikki Patomäki is Professor of World Politics and Global Political Economy at the University of Helsinki and one of Finland’s leading scholars of global political economy, democracy, and global governance. His work explores international relations, economics, philosophy, peace studies, and futures thinking, with a particular focus on democratic transformation at the global level. He has held professorships and visiting positions at institutions including Nottingham Trent University, RMIT University in Melbourne, and the University of Cambridge.

Konsta Kotilainen is a postdoctoral researcher in world politics and global political economy at the University of Helsinki whose work explores global governance, monetary theory, economics, and philosophy. His doctoral dissertation on monetary sovereignty and macroeconomic policy autonomy received an international PhD Thesis Prize from the University of Pavia. He is currently writing a book on supranational currency arrangements funded by the Kone Foundation and is also a researcher in the University of Helsinki’s Fragile Frontier (SPACE) project on space governance, resilience, and geopolitical change.

Suggested Resources

Global Justice Report 2026

Critical Realism & Peace Studies - Keynote Prof. Heikki Patomäki

Our Common Future: World System Scenarios for the 21st Century

Follow:

@globalvisionsry (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok)

GlobalVisionsry (YouTube & Linkedin)

More information: www.globalvisions.fi/en

Our music is licensed from premium beat.